Text Box: focused on the importance of nature in our daily lives, common and at hand, and how it influences our sense of well being, Warren said. “Rather than this idea that nature out there in national parks and huge forests and wildernesses that we never go to, and it is, and that’s great, it’s also right here in a nature center in the middle of Kingston, New York, or it’s in the woods right outside your house or it’s even in your lawn and the decisions you make about what kind of chemicals you put on your lawn. He’s someone who can tune people in to that way of thinking about nature,” said Warren. Also on his schedule was a stop at the Forsyth Nature Center in Kingston, where he and Lipton met with parents and their three to four year olds, who meet every other Friday for the Bookworms program, said Mark DeDea, the center’s director. There Lipton read her story The Bear and the Bee, based on Burroughs’ writings. Sitting in the John Burroughs chair, handcrafted by area resident Hoppy Quick, Warren touched on the importance of Burroughs’ life and encouraged parents to take their children to see Slabsides and walk the surrounding woodland. Another stop on Warren’s schedule was the farmer’s market in uptown Kingston, where he believed Burroughs would have felt right at home. “He was a farmer. He had a working farm raising grapes, currants and specialty fruits in small orchards and vineyards, and so if he were alive today, he would probably be at that farmers’ market on a Saturday morning, with some of his crops and selling them locally to the folks of Kingston,” said Warren. “The Text Box: By Aimee J. Frank English professor and John Burroughs scholar James Perrin Warren made the rounds in Ulster County last week, to discuss his new book and help spread the message of the important contributions made by Burroughs to U.S. literature and to past and contemporary environmental movements. Warren is the author of John Burroughs and the Place of Nature (University of Georgia Press, February 2006), which acknowledges Burroughs’ contribution to establishing nature writing as a genre and popularizing the importance of nature within mainstream American culture at the turn of the twentieth century, a period of rapid urbanization and industrialization. “It’s an academic book, but I tried to write it so that it might actually be of use to folks at a regional or city library,” said Warren. “It’s the first critical book about John Burroughs as a writer in probably 35 years. As a writer he’s really been neglected over the last 80 years. Since his death in 1921, he pretty much fell out of sight, except for some local interest perhaps.” That local interest in keeping Burroughs’s memory alive is manifested in the person of Gloria Lipton, a member of the John Burroughs Association, who brought Warren into town and served as what he called his “unpaid agent” for the two days he spent in the area. “I realized if he came to the community, it would be a way of getting people thinking of John Burroughs,” Lipton said. “I want people to understand that the man who came from Ulster County, John Burroughs, was not just another person, not just another important person, but a very significant American figure. Text Box: And he had the kind of values, the way he looked at the world, that we should be teaching children about and living ourselves.” Born on his family’s farm in Roxbury, New York in 1837, Burroughs settled down to his writing career on a small farm in West Park, in the town of Esopus in 1874. The books and essays written by Burroughs between the 1870s and 1920s were extremely popular, and as a result, John Burroughs and Wake Robin (his first book) societies sprung up across the country. He authored more than 30 books and wrote numerous essays published in popular contemporary magazines, many of which were adopted as part of school curricula nationally, said Warren. Warren and Lipton spent the early morning on Friday as guests on Kingston’s community radio station, WGHQ, before joining several members of the John Burroughs Association board of directors at Burroughs’ former home. The organization purchased Slabsides, Burroughs’ cabin on his Esopus property, and has dedicated itself to preserving his legacy, encouraging nature writing and preserving the national historic landmark. Warren visited the wood cabin when he researched his book at Vassar, which has the best collection of Burroughs works, he said. The simplicity of the simple wooden structure reflects Burroughs’ philosophy of living with nature, Warren said. “One of the things it tells you, there’s still very evident the mark of an intentional life. Someone who made some real choices and tried to live by his choices.” Much of Burroughs’ writing Text Box: emphasis on buying local and knowing where your food comes from, that’s the message we get from a lot of different environmental groups. That’s something he lived by. It sort of ties directly into what the Stockade farmers market is about.” Other area events included a book signing and discussion at Alternative Books in Uptown Kingston, and talks at the Kingston and Woodstock libraries. Warren was in New York to give the closing keynote address at the SUNY Oneonta biannual Burroughs conference, Sharp Eyes. Warren teaches nineteenth century American and environmental literature and serves as English Department Chair at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He is the author of Culture of Eloquence and Walt Whitman’s Language Experiment.

More than a naturalist

Visiting John Burroughs scholar highlights the man’s literary contributions

Thursday, June 15, 2006